Carrying On

In urban Arusha, where many have (although limited) access to the utilities, transportations, markets and conveniences that rural communities like Olekitayemuni lack altogether, the bustling city chaos can make it easy for one to walk by disabled and destitute kaka na dada (brothers and sisters) when traveling down the town’s main streets.

Jana (yesterday) I was hospitably escorted through the back-roads from LeMara Secondary School to Themi Secondary by a chatty pair of 17-year old young men (obedience, as they demonstrated in respect to the instructions of their headmaster, seems in comparison a lost value on myself and my peers). A nearly high-noon sun reflected in jagged rays off the rush of the Themi River, where a multitude of women gathered barefoot, bent at the waist, scrubbing plastic bins full of dirty batik wraps, kanga cloths, and dingy tees. Looking straight down from our walk over a railway bridge – ugly metal poles slashing though an otherwise Edenesque riverbed of rainbow blossoms and bursting banana trees – I saw truth: African women are the backbone of this continent.

My peripheral glances, as I kept tripping over bumps in a record number of “Pole!”s (sorry!) as my eyes tried to absorb the entire 360 degrees, gave an even more accurate view of daily life in Arusha. Nyumbas (homes) of windowless crumbling concrete lined the ‘main road’ (the strip of potholes paralleling the railroad track) – the many cramped clusters extending far into the land behind this front row were even more dilapidated. Women who have never gone to school flanked by children who may never have a chance, selling small piles of neatly arranged fruits and vegetables in transactions I have yet to witness.

A walk along the main roads of Arusha Town will not reveal the fullness of the backstreets, just as a glance at a morning headline or feature photo misses the back-story. The stereotypical western perception of Africa is not entirely wrong, but rather, incomplete. After one week of beginning to shape the HIV Outreach Program I have been asked to create (from July 23 – Aug 24 with incoming British volunteers) I am beginning to build a fuller picture of Arusha and the community’s response to HIV/AIDS. Sans podium or news broadcast at their disposal, the individuals I have recently met - through external guidance and internal spontaneity - are incredible heroes living improbably generous and selfless lives.

Making plans in Tanzania is an oxymoron in and of itself, and requires far more patience and flexibility than I am asked to expend in New York.

“You Americans are always so concerned about time!” a doctor laughs at me, dismissing my pace as futile.

A limited availability of resources (or at times, entire lack thereof) has conditioned a continent into resourcefulness – from the smallest impressive norm of carrying of goods on heads to the gravest disturbances of using cardboard boxes for sharps disposals, or carrying on surgeries without anesthetics. I’ll let you imagine the breadth of the continuum.

And so I psyche myself up, to be prepared to make constant and unanticipated amendments, concessions, and decisions. Most importantly, to meet all challenges with an enormous smile, if not for the endorphins alone, for a smoother acceptance into local communities as an mzungu. With the smile, I managed to avert the painstakingly slow pace of bureaucracy and secure a permit from the Regional Education Offices to work in public schools last week. With the smile, I also managed to find myself on the backseat of a puttering motorbike with Richard, speeding down Nairobi Road, chasing a lead on his AIDS organization, or more specifically, destination unknown.

We slid off the bumpy tarmac road and down an even rockier dirt path, passing surprised schoolchildren who waved, some shyly, some aggressively, at the mzungu. Their turf, unlike the main roads of Arusha town where safari tourists and great white adventurers boost the local economy, is not as used to my pale skin. Richard skids to a stop besides his office hidden below low tree branches, sun filtering through the leaves, and after a brief, broken attempt at conversation, we somehow decide to return to town to meet his organization’s treasurer and chairman, who can accommodate my KiIngereeze (English).

Richard is the founder of the Tumaini Positive Test Club (TUPO), and leads a group of 120 members (88 women, 32 men) and over 50 children in an effort to support people living with HIV/AIDS (PLHA) in Arusha. Anna, the treasurer, let us join her bustle between bank trips and clinic visits, and I buy them kuku (chicken) and Cokes, afraid that at their uncharacteristically urgent pace in this climate, they might not have thought to stop for lunch. Later on we find Emmanuel, the chairman, finishing his lunch of ugali (stiff maize flour porridge) and samaki (fish) outside of a delicious local spot, Barcelona Gardens.

I introduce myself and my desire to learn more about AIDS in Arusha, and Emmanuel cuts to the chase. “AIDS is not the problem,” he states matter-of-factly,

“Stigma is the problem.”

And in an hour I come to understand how this group of passionate, relentless individuals are changing the culture of a community and addressing the needs of their fellow PLHA. Started with 15 members in March of 2005, under the leadership of Emmanuel, Richard and Anna, TUPO has grown to 120 members and manages a widows group, football team, and choir, whose members serve as community educators; a jewelry-making income generation group, whose members save profits for rent and a food fund that will buy fruits and vegetables missing from the mostly unbalanced diets of their peers already struggling through physically rigorous anti-retroviral therapy. TUPO daycare and kindergarten services take care of children whose parents are in the hospital or who have passed away. Home-Based Care (HBC…what used to always be palliative is now, thanks to greater drug availability and adherence, can be a step towards recovery) and TUPO members care for 10-12 families a week.

“As a culture here”, Emmanuel explains, “ you always go to someone’s home with a gift, but we often have to go empty handed” “ But they still carry on. They wash, monitor diets and drug adherence, and generously supply love and attention to those otherwise shunned from the community. “If one person is sick the entire family can suffer” echoes in my mind as I wish our leaders could understand a bit better the weakest link concept.

I inquire about the relevancy of my hope to host a Youth Testing Day in August, and he nods in agreement. “Many don’t test because they think they will get HIV and die”, he says, as he explains misconception. This has been reconfirmed in the past week, like the young girls I met at a local testing center who joked with each other while waiting for their results that, “If I am positive I will have to run away!” Stigma is the problem.

[PLEASE honor this entry by celebrating and sharing June 27th, 2007- National HIV Testing Day in the states –with your family, friends and coworkers. www.testing411.org makes it incredibly simple – please do that now.]

Another lead and a phone call later, I find myself sipping a warm Coke in a deserted bar with Oddo – concrete floor littered with empty, flimsy plastic chairs, two of which we occupy. “Our children – they need love,” Oddo says, explaining his organization, Children for the Children’s Future (CCF). As Project Manager of the street children and orphans program of CCF, Oddo confirms that it is not only secondary school students but also his clientele who are capable of being peer educators. His program philosophy – “no force” – speaks through the child’s autonomy throughout the process: identifying oneself as an ally to street children, offering food and showers at a Drop-In Center (30-40 children), offering housing and education at a Residential center (60-80 children), and offering home visits and legal aide to facilitate home reintegration. Friendships are formed gradually on the streets, on their turf. Trust is built and terms are set mutually. In the midst of abusive relatives, alcoholic fathers, evil stepmothers (literally – some become jealous of an elder boy’s inheritance rights and kick him out to keep the goods), Oddo encourages a 4-6 month turnaround time.

On our way out a lanky child runs towards us, hands waving and lips flying, pointing Oddo towards a young man slumped over across the street. Oddo limps with determination (and without cane, “The missionaries in my home village were good to me as a child with polio”) and makes a phone call to get this boy help. Oddo’s work is far from happily ever after – this young man was slumped in the exact some spot when I passed a few days later – but he still carries on.

The fiercest warrior of the week is also the most foolish (but perhaps this is always the case?). Approaching me with a saintly peace through bumper-to-bumper chaos, Reverend Kaaya introduces himself s a one-man HBC machine, delivering aid to the neediest PLHA in Nkoanrua, an area of 5,000 people where he individually visits over 100 “clients” and cares for nearly 50 AIDS orphans. Foolish because he himself has a wife and two children, who he must sustain through the same donations, he receives for the ‘program’ (a word that overestimates the practicality of his work). I am reminded fondly of my precious Nouno, who so many times in his life has chosen compassion over practicality, and saved so many lives because of this risk taking.

I hesitated to criticize, but praise seemed contradictory.

I cautiously asked to explain my hesitation over the drink I offered him (he chose the simplicity of soda water): get a job, support yourself and your family, then you can improve and strengthen your services. He seems unable to shake an engrained responsibility to his neighbors, despite the incredible sacrifice he and his family must make to serve them. The Christian church was not as good to him as they were to Oddo – he was sent to seminary in Nairobi and trained to work as a pastor, and realized upon homecoming to Arusha that pastoral jobs are generally unpaid voluntary positions. I suggested teaching as an alternative; he promised to look for jobs.

He explains, with obvious spiritual battle ongoing behind his words, how difficult it is to turn down requests from the church for building donations. “I ask instead for money to feed the children,” he laughs uneasily and looks up, “Some things can wait.”

What makes my eyes squint in frustration the most is the community reaction. “I get lots of stigmatization, and little to no support form the community,” he admits, head down, “in fact, most people in my community criticize the work I do.” But he still carries on.

I am blessed with much to look forward to this week – (smiling and patient) visits to headmasters, delving deeper into TUPO, shadowing Oddo for a day, and making rounds with Reverend Kaaya, backpack full of sugar, flour, PB, painkillers, butter, fruits, bread.

“Karibu,” these heroes say to me.

Asante.

“Nitakutembeza!”, they smile, “I will take you there.”

Their insistence to share their work with me is the positive side of this human condition. Of the many words that have already lodged themselves in my digestion process, Reverend Kaaya’s echo: “Many clients are trying to transmit HIV to others.”

Illogical?

“They don’t want to die alone.”

Oh.

In a nation with a life expectancy of 48, I’m nearly middle aged. And as much as I am first thinking of the Programme development and doing my job well, something deeper creeps through, and all these conversations reinforce what I continually find. As humans we all yearn to belong, to be part of something, a team, family, community, and isolation is perhaps the most vicious pain that could be inflicted upon someone.

These heroes are not well-dressed men in shiny shoes driving bright white 4x4s; spare tires adorably adorned with labels, logos and well wishes of international organizations. These are folks struggling themselves to make a living, but make a living by giving back to their community. They do not hide behind luxuries – not that they’ve ever been available to them – maybe they are so fearless because just that – they have nothing to hide behind. They are not curing AIDS or eliminating child abuse, but they know a lofty goal would be a useless goal. Many have learned this via lofty promises floating away into empty promises. I store this neatly and accessibly at the front of my mind.

Bravery – facing the reality that you may not win the war, but you will nevertheless get up every day and fight the battle with hope. They still carry on.